Usually,
books are made into movies. In the case of Devashish Makhija’s Oonga, the movie,
which premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival in 2013, has been made into a novel.
Oonga the protagonist, an eight year old
adivasi boy who adores Lord Ram, is unable to join his friends when they were
taken to the city by Hemla didi, their Hindi teacher, to watch a play about
Sita’s abduction by Ravana. So, Oonga goes to the city on his own to watch the
play Sitaharan, has a number of adventures en route, and returns home safely,
smeared in blue paint, like his super hero Rama. If this gives you the idea that Oonga is a
movie for children, by children, you couldn’t be more wrong. Oonga also has paramilitary
forces and Naxalites, adivasis living in the forests of central India and a
greedy mining company devouring the sacred land. Makhija is a good mixologist
and he serves his readers a potent cocktail, one that will leave behind a
bitter sweet aftertaste even after it disappears down the gullet.
Oonga is naughty, Oonga is lazy, Oonga is
brave, Oonga is curious, Oonga is adorable, Oonga is impish and Makhija has the
reader rooting for Oonga from the beginning till the end. One worries for his
safety, laughs at his pranks and heave a sigh of relief as he makes it back
home to the safety of his mother Oongamma. Almost all characters are as
multi-dimensional and interesting as Oonga. There’s Hemla the teacher who tries
to teach Hindi to her wards and is tortured by security forces for her pains.
Manoranjan the commanding officer, who bullies his two underlings Pradip and
Sushil is perfect case study material for anyone who wants to understand how power
corrupts so absolutely even in the hands of a not-so-important security officer.
Pradip bullies ‘milk-tooth’ Sushil even more than Manoranjan and one can
see young Sushil being taken apart and remade in the same mold as Pradip. And then there
are Laxmi and Linga, Naxal leaders, totally committed to their cause, who
believe that ‘an onslaught of violence can only be countered with an equal
and opposite violence’.
The school building where Hemla is detained and
tortured by Manoranjan is one which used to host adivasi children from all eight
villages in the region. There was a time when they would hang paper flags
all around the school where the barbed wire now runs. There was a time when all
you could hear from inside those walls were happy songs and a chorus of voices
chanting the alphabet. Now, there is deathly silence, like at the bottom
of a coal mine.
Why do men like Sushil and Pradip join the para-military
forces? In Sushil’s case, his father had been a farmer who’s land a corporation
had wanted to acquire. Resistance to the acquisition resulted in a police
complaint, an arrest and the ransacking of their hut. ‘And at twelve it hit
me that a man as big and healthy and strong and brave as my father could also
turn into a slobbering, fucked-up mess when face to face with someone in
uniform. The Uniform was everything. What the Uniform said, we had to follow.
Where the Uniform took us, we had to go. That’s when I decided I wanted to get
into one as soon as possible. I wasn’t going to waste my entire life tilling a
field morning to night, only to have it taken away in a heartbeat.’
Do Naxalites solve the problems faced by
adivasis? The answer is a resounding No, at least as far as Hemla is concerned.
The Naxals couldn’t save Padua and Hemla’s village Pottacheru is the next
target. After Hemla escapes from the clutches of Manoranjan who brutalizes her,
she runs into the Naxal dalam led by Laxmi and Linga. ‘You went to my
village without my permission. And because of you they are in danger now,’,
Hemla accuses the Naxals. ‘If any of them die tonight’, Hemla says, ‘that
blood will be on your hands’.
Linga has had enough. He cocks his rifle in
Hemla’s face, fuming.
Hemla turns to Laxmi. ‘I know you care, Didi’,
she says. ‘But by doing things this way you are no different from them. I
had a gun pointed at me there. I have a gun pointed at me now.’
‘Don’t come to the village again. Without
you we may still have a chance. With you, we have none.’
Makhija's message couldn't be clearer. If only the Naxals stopped muddying the Adivasi waters, the Adivasis would have a fighting chance to find their moorings and lead a humane existence.
Oonga has the feel of a screenplay, owing to
its movie origins, which works well for this story. Makhija writes well, in
simple language, with dramatic flourishes and interludes. He switches
effortlessly from Oonga’s baby talk to the theatre dialogue for Sitaharan to
the Naxals’ and the security forces’ rough and ready speech. I enjoyed reading Oonga and highly recommend
it.
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